Hold The Line | Week 5 | Chris de Monye | Echoes Church

Jesus loves and moves and transforms lives here at Echo's Church. Amen? Amen. It's been so special. And to think about the armor of God, like this moment in scripture. Ephesians chapter six, where Paul is talking to the church in Ephesus,

and he's talking to two groups of people. He's talking to one, these like Jewish believers who have converted to Christianity, putting their faith in Jesus as the coming Messiah who satisfied all things of the law. And then you have the Gentiles

who are these like people who never had any other faith background or came out of other faith backgrounds and now are giving their lives to Jesus. And you think of what's in this room today.

Some of you have lived your life in religion. You were born into a pew. You grew up knowing what your parents taught you and living in it all your life, and some of you are still just investigating. Maybe you're here because you're like, man, there's a cute girl there and I'm trying to do that flirt to convert thing and like make this thing happen. Like whatever brought you here, it's incredible that God can meet you in it and remind you religion

isn't the way. Free thinking isn't the way. Jesus is the only way. What an incredible gift.

And this idea that Paul in Ephesians, if you have your Bibles turn there, chapter six, is encouraging us to say hey, the following Jesus is not simply a set of ideas. It's not simply a set of beliefs. But out of the great love that he's shown us, it's a set of actions that we practically live out our faith. And the way he presents it to both these groups of people and to us because it's not written to us but it's written for us is this allows us to engage with the text to say, what does it look like for me in my life with Jesus to daily put on the armor of God? Because daily,

all of the passions of your flesh and ideas and life and desires and wants, like CS Lewis says, they rush you like wild animals. And how are we supposed to combat all the things that are happening in the world? Like do you believe that it is not just great ideas or even your own desires, but there is an enemy in the world who wants to kill, steal, and destroy everything good in your life?

Do you believe though that Jesus on the other hand wants to give you life and life to the full? I mean, choose your road. I mean, I wanna be like living life and life to the full as Jesus would want it for me. And so practically, Paul says, hey, put the armor of God on. This is what he says starting in verse 10. Finally,

be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but in the but but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, having done all to stand firm. Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness. And as for shoes of your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith which with you which with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And here's where we are today.

And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. And we will focus on the helmet of salvation. But it was so good even last week pastor Daniel talking about like this idea of the shield of faith and encouraging us to stretch ourselves in our faith to actually apply it in a real way. He even talked about how he can bench like 315

pounds.

I was like wanting to jump through the screen and just be like bench me down. You know like let me let me experience this. Like that is why I haven't been lifted up in a very long time. That would have been really cool to experience that. Feel light again. You know. But it's so crazy because like when we think of this helmet of salvation,

we're saying then as a response to Jesus gift of salvation,

we as followers of Jesus need to put it on daily and see the world through that lens. That you can't just simply accept salvation as a gift and move on with your life like it never happened. In fact the Bible is really clear to us that our purpose in life and pursuit of our life in growth is to become sanctified.

That's a $20 theologian word that just means to be more like Jesus if Jesus was you.

To be more like Jesus if Jesus was you. That we and everything we do could look like Jesus to the world. And in that, there are some things you have to mortify, put to death. Some things you have to vivify, bring to life. And in the mind,

it's not just simply a part of you that's built in. I mean, if you think about Deuteronomy chapter six, which is the first part in the Bible where you hear about you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

strength, and soul. It doesn't actually talk about the mind. But when you go through the new gospels, the Gospels in the New Testament, it adds that idea of mind. Like when Jesus is like cornered by the Pharisees like, hey what's the greatest law of all? And Jesus like you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. The other is like you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And mind seems to be added. Was mine a later addition? Well no. Because in a primarily in the Jewish background and faith, when it talked about the heart, it was talking about the will, the heart, and the mind. All the operating systems of the humankind were all wrapped up in one. It was implicit to the statement of heart. But now in the Greek setting of the New Testament with Roman Garden, everybody's hearing from it. This mind had it to be added because it's not implicit. What was implicit needed to be made explicit so that they would get it. And I think that's a good application to us.

Because many of us in our Christian walk, we find ourselves in a place where maybe the mind is a different zone than the heart. And Christianity is not just simply meant to be a whole bunch of emotional experiences you have. It is and can be and will be those things, but it's also about the mind.

That you can renew your mind. That you should take every thought captive. The Bible doesn't walk away from saying there's intellect that God has put into you and wants to redeem along with all the other faculties of your being. What a beautiful thing.

He doesn't just leave the mind to do its own separate thing. All of it has to line up together, and modern science is proving the same. When we talk about the renewing of our mind. Think about neuroplasticity

for a second. If you're not familiar, I'll give you a bit of a picture. Your mind is like a wild jungle. Okay? And in that jungle there are pathways that through actions and habits you have ground down to different destinations. Let's say dopamine hits and pleasure. Okay. One of the addictions that people have is addiction to pornography where people have ran down that path so much it seems like the most accessible route. And so when they come to that before Jesus say, ah I want to get free. I want to put this sin to death. I want to be free from it. But in their practice, it feels like it's just so difficult to break free from it. What's happening is the neuroplasticity

is showing a pathway that's been used so much. But then when the person submits their heart and mind to Jesus, lives under the obedience of the word of God for their life, What happens in the brain is the new pathways,

new pleasure ways, the new wins, those start getting used more for the same outcomes, and that one that used to be pleasurable, although sinful before the Lord begins to grow over, and soon enough you don't even desire what you used to run to for pleasure.

How beautiful that God in his design of us gave an opportunity for us to be free from the sin that so easily entangles and has ensnared and entrenched so many of us, and in whatever you're carrying. I want to give you hope today that through the helmet of salvation,

you can have freedom from sin like you've never experienced. It's part of the good news. That your mind isn't just the devil's playground. It gives you space to actually rule over and submit and be redeemed to Jesus all the things that are happening up here.

But it starts by understanding the free gift of salvation. It's like I have a little bit about me. I'm married to my wife, Mercedes. We've been together for twenty one years. Isn't that incredible? Twenty one years. I

know. I look 22. You're wondering how is that possible? When we were sixteen seventeen, we worked at a movie theater together. It was called Famous Players. I would call myself a famous player.

And I would sell the tickets and she would tear them, and God just brought like that. His hand. He knew what he was doing. Brought that together. And we had four sons. Okay. Only boys. We said no girls. No. Just kidding. We chased the girl and didn't didn't find her.

Actually, it was so funny. Our last one, we went in for the ultrasound. You know that baby one where you can see and you're like because we always want to find out. We're like, life has too many surprises. We want to know what's in there. And and we even had one guy prophesy. He's like it's a girl for sure and I don't trust him at all anymore.

But we went in and the ultrasound wand goes right on my wife's stomach and immediately right on the screen turtle. Boom. We're like we've seen that.

You know. And then but my three my other kid was on my lap and he kicked out the plug to the ultrasound machine right at that moment. So all that like the ultrasound, all the lights go off and all we hear is like baby Mozart like quietly playing in the background. My wife just sobbing

in the moment. I'm not laughing at her sobbing, but the moment's funny now in retrospect. But it's like, where was I even going with this? So we have four sons. You can believe that road trips with my family are insane.

Right? Like and the one thing they've really picked up from their mom is the sense of being hangry. Anybody else get hangry in here? Like you get hungry, you your faith disappears. You're just like, I'm no longer a Christian. I don't believe anything until you feed me. So

all five of them were hangry. They're all hangry and we're driving and they couldn't get unified in the van around what they wanted. So in Canada there's a place called Tim Hortons and Tim Hortons is like a donut coffee chain. Okay? It's not good but it's Canadian. You know what I'm saying? And they always do this weird offshoots where they try new things and one of the things they tried recently is pizza. So now they're making pizza. Two of my kids wanted pizza from Tim Hortons specifically.

My other kids wanted some sort of sub. Okay. Like firehouse subs or subway or something. And so I'm driving. I'm like, man, where are we going find this girl? Going

off in the back. And I'm driving, come around a corner, and it was like God shone a light through the clouds. And there was a parking lot to my right that had both a Tim Hortons and a sub joint in the same spot. I said, Lord, you're real.

And so I end up getting into the parking lot, and my two older ones go with my wife to the sub place, and I take my two younger ones to the Tim Hortons. Outside, as we're walking in, we find a wallet on the ground and like $300 coming out of it. And my kids eyes light up like dad finders keepers.

And I'm like not yet. We gotta try one thing first but then like so I take the wallet

and I I look at and sure enough the guy has like some business cards in there and so I call him five times and he doesn't pick up because nobody picks up calls anywhere. They don't know the number because you never know what you're gonna get on the other side of that. And then I text him, bro, I found your wallet and boom, he called me right back. I'm like, hey. So he drives back and my two boys who are with me and the guys are so thankful and he reaches into his wall and pulls out two crisp $5 bills and gives one to each of the kids. And I'm like

And he shook my hand. He shook my hand. And I said, dude you have no idea. Like they wanted to finders keepers in. I I am the reason. These little heathens, un Christ like like messes wanted to keep your money and I got it anyways. I'm not bitter anymore but in the moment it's like they got an unmerited

gift of favor. Nothing they did. Your life with Jesus is completely unmerited. There's nothing you did to deserve it. In this is love. Not that we love God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. And if you can order a double frappe caramel macchiato two whip half sweet frappuccino,

you can remember the word propitiation. It means all atoning sacrifice.

Jesus poured all of it out for you. This salvation where God the Father has this plan and Jesus subjects himself to the plan submits to it comes to earth lives a perfect life that you and I could not have goes to death as an innocent man and dies in our place because the wages of sin is death

And we can know that it's been paid for in full because three days later he was not dead, he rose back to life. Incredible isn't it?

Yeah.

My man, thank you for starting that. Because here's the thing, it doesn't even just end there. Like he just ended up then being with people and like hundreds of people saw him and he sends him to heaven and says hey, I'm gonna send one back. The same power that rose me from the dead is gonna live in you. And now the spirit of God one of the three comes in and dwells his church So that you and I walk through our life knowing

and being edified, encouraged, convicted, grown through the spirit's power in our life and putting this helmet of salvation on is believing that it's true in every circumstance. Believing that it's real. Because we define ourselves in all sorts of broken ways. Modern science will tell you this in psychology

that you have a self.

And this self is like the coarse most true you that you could find. This is like the you that not everybody gets to see. Okay? This is the you that only like if you're married and you put on that t shirt at bed that seventeen years should have been thrown away seventeen years ago, or you put your mouth guard in and you're like, I love you baby. And like the other side is like when your husband's snoring in your face all night and you're like, please get checked for sleep apnea. Please. Like I I I think Darth Vader's really hot. Like I've always thought that, know. And like just get the machine. And it's like this person that you like Not many people get to see your true self.

Even in relationships, even though the Bible tells you you should be one, like have you not read that he who made them in the beginning made the male and female and said a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. They're no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let man not separate. This oneness that exists between a husband and a wife even still sometimes is barricaded so that you don't really fully understand and know each other. Why?

Because of all the brokenness that's happened along the way. The hurt, the betrayal, the sin, the lies, all of the loss, the failure, all of the things that have happened in your life begin to create this just like grid around you that stops you from ever really being known.

And in some parts of your life, it's actually very appropriate that you'd have these things, they happen to you and that you would create some safeguards for them. My friend talks about it as like scaffolding

around a building. It's like if you needed to be held up for a season, oh, that broken trust really hurt me, and so you built some scaffolding to help you up and help you move forward. Or oh, I didn't think that I'd ever do something like that, and then you built some scaffolding. But after a time, if you don't actually work those things out in healing before Jesus, all that scaffolding becomes as a prison.

Where you just think I can't now I have to be this because people believe that's who I am, and what gets portrayed through this lie of all the failure and all the things the enemy wants to play in ends up becoming the image that you portray to the rest of the world. What's interesting about it though in the midst of the image, it's not just the bad things. It's also the good things. Like trophies are heavy too, aren't they?

Where you're like, man, I've always like, I've succeeded this way in business or I've succeeded this way and had this moment. I've done this thing so well. When you succeed, sometimes the expectation into yourself becomes that you'll always be able to produce that again.

And Jesus doesn't want you wearing the pressure of your successes or your failures. In fact, says you're just not defined by either. When you put the helmet of salvation on, you realize this in full. Because what becomes elusive to us is the ideal self, the one we'd hope to be one day.

I call this the idol of the future self. Like we have that in our in our communities. North America is really bad for this. We're like maybe you wish you were different.

Maybe you wish you were healthier, skinnier, look different. Maybe you wish you had a different experience of life, quality of life. Maybe you wish like this ideal self is always aloof. You always want to grab it. But the truth in the Bible is that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This idealness that we hope to achieve is unachievable by our own power. I mean one of the things that I've always felt ideal in is kind of tied to who I am. I love people. Like this teaching thing is like something that I do. I feel faithful to Jesus in it, but I'm all about people people people people people. Like if you saw my Berkman, which is like a personal like understanding test, it's like it's right corner green everything. What do I love? People. What drives me? People. What fuels me? People. What do I hate? People. It's all like people. It's

all about people my whole life. And so that makes me very pastoral as a person. Like, I'll teach, but like I love to pastor. I love to shepherd. I love to be in people's worlds. And so I was walking with this one woman. I do. I like there's something in myself that I would pride myself on. I was walking with this one woman, and her health was declining. And at one point, she'd lost her vision, and now she was in her end stage of her life in hospital. I went to visit her. And in seminary, they taught you to always go in with like a gift, because you never know if someone's intubated

taking a nap. Like you can just show that you were there and they feel loved because something's left behind from you. And so my buddy had just released a book and I grabbed it and I wrote in the front of it like, I hope this book encourages you as you read it and da da da da. And I close, I go in and their whole family's there. I said, hey, just I got this book for you. And her husband's like, Chris, she's blind. She can't read that.

And I'm like, I know. But maybe you can read it to her, you know? And what ended up happening is like my heart immediately was just like, oh my gosh, I'm so bad at this. Like, I did not live up to the ideal expectation of myself. And I want to ask you that question, like, what expectations do you have of an ideal you?

Like, what things do you have living around in your head of the things that, man, ideal me would make this much money, have this much respect. Just think of anything.

You'd live this way, rest this way, act this way, play this way. What's that? Does that feel like a weight when you start thinking about it? I know for me it does. And in that moment where I gave that blind lady a book, I just felt so bad. But you know, what ended up happening

yeah, it's crazy. It's a crazy situation, but just catch this. Yo, this gets real, real fast. Yo, her son started reading that book to her as she was passing. Her son, after she passed, finished the book and gave his life to Jesus. Hold on, hold on. We're clap, but you're hold on.

Her son ended up getting I got to baptize him in the church in the name of father son and holy spirit. He married a Christian girl. I got to do their premarital counseling under the authority of Christ. I got to marry them in covenant before Jesus. They had two beautiful babies. I got to dedicate their babies unto the Lord. Like Jesus moved in my mess up. Yo.

Like what Wait. What? And so there's something that God wants to do in your obedience to him that even when you fail,

he wants to walk with you in that. And then we even when you're walking through a life of consistent brokenness in yourself, in others, of what you're doing, what others have done to you. How do you operate? And we have to get this right. The helmet of salvation helps us to understand God's great love for us. And receiving that love in the midst of any circumstance is knowing that no matter the circumstance, God is good. God is trustworthy.

And as long as he's still God, he's still good.

Donald Miller says it this way in his book, Sierra Close. What if we are designed as sensitive antennas, Receptors to receive love, along and we often mistake as a need to be impressive.

What some of the most successful people in the world got that way because their success was fueled by a misappropriated need for love? What if the people we consider to be great are actually the most broken? And what if the whole time they're seeking applause, they are missing out on true intimacy because they've never learned how to receive it?

If I asked you to experience now and think about what it feels like to be in the presence of God,

what would you feel? A God who loves you as you, loves you as much on your worst day as he does on your best day, isn't afraid of your humanity and your brokenness, invites you to come on a journey with him throughout your life where he says, hey, yes, you are secure forever,

but I wanna walk with you today and transform how you view your life today. What would that be like?

What would it be like if you walked and abided in the presence of God rather than just running after his stuff and his experience, but you walked with him and expected that he would bear the fruit through you because he's the one doing the work, and your job is to connect to the vine and abide with him?

What if your job was to walk with him closely?

Because this starts to transform and change everything. Where you go through suffering and biblically if there's suffering leads to endurance and endurance leads to character and character leads to hope. And now you have this like helmet of salvation view of when I'm suffering, God can take really bad things and make really good outcomes. He's that capable.

That when you're walking through loss and mourning in the midst of your pain, you don't grieve as those without hope. Why? Because you have hope.

That Jesus has something more for you even in the midst of that pain that he can bring comfort and hope and that he actually cares about you and walks with you. Think about like Jesus when Lazarus dies in John 11 and Jesus finally shows up and Mary and Martha and all the other Jewish people who are mourning Lazarus four days in the grave. He knows he's gonna raise Lazarus from the dead,

but he weeps with them. Peter Creeft says that Jesus is truly God's tears on earth for the suffering of mankind. I love that picture because we don't serve a God who doesn't empathize with us. We serve a God who is with us through all the hard and says, one day all hard things will be gone.

No more tears, no more suffering, no more pain that's coming, but how do we walk through now? Well, we walk through based on the new identity we're given in Christ because when you give your life to him, you put on this helmet of salvation and daily as followers of Jesus we say, no, I'm gonna be defined by the gospel, defined by his goodness, defined by this gift. Something begins to change in yourself. In fact, the Bible says you're no longer your old self, but you are new self. Second Corinthians five seventeen.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new has come. You are now a new self who has not just a new self, but because of who you are in Jesus, you have a new identity. Your new self is your new identity. You're no longer defined by your issues.

Your issues aren't your identity. You are just a new self divine by him. And what if you took the helmet of salvation and put it on and believe that the word of God for your life was true. That what God says about you is the truest thing about you. I mean some of us aren't even living practically the way we can even do that.

If your Bible at home has more dust in it than your wine rack, something's out of place. If you're spending more time even browsing Netflix, not even watching than being in the Word of God. No wonder you can't receive his love.

Hey I did some of the footwork for you. Let me tell you what the Bible says about you now that you're in Christ. If you've given your life to him what this means for you. It means this. You are a child of God. You are a friend of Jesus.

You are forgiven and part of God's family. You are no longer a slave to sin. You are accepted by Christ. You are free. You are a new creation. You're unable to be replaced and worth dying for. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are set apart. You are free from condemnation.

You are made complete God's masterpiece and over all things you are loved. You're loved. That God just absolutely loves you. Now take this and start like filtering your life through what that is.

Wait. I'm forgiven, free. My new self has like I'm dignified, loved. Like all of these things now become that parameter by which you see the rest of the world and how you engage with it, and this changes you.

Because in the midst of all of our life, one of the hardest things we have to get by is the game of comparison in the midst of what we live in. Anybody else fall trapped to that?

I think we can all at some level raise our hands. It is incredible because we have so much connectivity through the world and but we see so much if it's even true of what other people want us to see, not what they actually live in. And it causes us to be so discontented with our life because we want what someone else has. You know, when I worked in even in ministry in good things, I was

I became the receptionist of a church when I came out to British Columbia up in Canada. Okay? I was the manliest receptionist anybody's ever seen. I tell you what. And this guy Mark Clark, who's an incredible speaker.

He was one of these guys who took me under his wing for over a decade and just started like pastoring me up and teaching me what ministry is like and everything. But he would get to fly like everywhere around North America and he'd bring me with him as an accountability partner, but then I get to be in circles I never thought I'd be in. I'm meeting guys that I'm reading, I'm having all these moments and I was sitting down with one guy who was an exceptional leader and he was talking about how he invited Mark into this invite only circle and I said do you think I'll ever get invited to that? He's like nope.

I'm like, well why not? He's like, because you're number two and we only invite number ones. In that moment, man, I felt so small. Like I told you about my gift set, like teaching isn't my primary, it's people. And that puts me in pastoral situations more than teaching opportunities.

I went back to the hot tub in Florida that night, what a God, just commiserating with him. Being like, hey,

why can't I have a gift like that? Why did you make me this way? Why can't I be that person? Why don't I get those opportunities? And I was just like going off about like how why couldn't I be more like him. Anybody else ever done that? Why couldn't I have that experience? Why couldn't I have that thing? And as I'm sitting in the hot tub, I see some guy standing over at the door, and he's trying to get in, he obviously doesn't have his keys. So I get up out of the hot tub, like half naked dripping wet. Don't think about it too long.

I don't want anybody to stumble.

And I'm like walking up to the thing, and I hit the button on the door, and sure enough, I just like get to let him in. But as I am, I look at his face and it's like, man, he's upset about something. I said, are you okay? He said, no. Like, my grandfather my grandmother passed away. We're super close. I didn't get to say goodbye. Said, did she have a faith background? Do you? He says, no. I said, man, I believe that God

wants to, like, comfort you right now, there's a God who loves you. Can I pray for you? He says, yes. So I put my hand on this man's shoulder, and I just start praying the healing and hope of Jesus into his life, comfort, and he collapses into my arms, full grown man, half naked hub.

And in the midst of all the only in Florida, but in the midst of all the ridiculousness, I just heard God in the midst of me like, this is good too. This is good too.

I have given you these gifts for my purpose for my glory. This is good too. Stop comparing yourself to others and just be the you that I've created you to be. No more trying to be someone else. The best you you can be is you walking close to Jesus into every single room you're part of.

That's the best you you can possibly be. It's not your competency, your skill set, what you can achieve. It's who you are with Him. Bring that everywhere

you go. And and as you walk what ends up happening now is like your ideal self changes. So now when I used to go home, like my wife will ask me today when I get home tonight in Vancouver. She's like how did it go? And she's talking about the sermon. How did the sermon go? I used to be like, well, if people laughed, seemed to like me, were dialed in. That's great. If someone cried bonus points, I'd be like, man, things went pretty well. But now it's three things. It's was I faithful to Jesus, did I preach the text, was I myself.

And if I did those three things, then I did just great.

That's all I'm being called to do. And so my ideal self is different than what the world would say, it's built on who Jesus says I am. That I am loved, that I am enough because he said I was enough. He proved it in his death and nothing else gets in the way. And you know what happens when you live that kind of life?

It's amazing.

Your image that you're showing to the world, your ideal self looks a whole lot more like him. You start to look more like Jesus.

This journey of sanctification you got to be more like him, but we lean into it. That's why this whole idea even Dallas Willard talks about it that grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude and effort is an action. That you're called to actually put effort into your relationship with Jesus. Effort into your spiritual disciplines, so you can step under and be ready for the presence of God whenever he wants to pour it out on you. Effort so that you can be more like him, so you can know the word and live under it. Effort, yes. But you have to know like it's not being earned. Jesus gave that to you for free, but you still gotta step in.

It's like I do Brazilian jiu jitsu in my spare time. If you're not familiar with that I put on pajamas and wrestle other men. It's ridiculous. I am a purple belt with two stripes, so I can kick a lot of butt.

I can't kick all the butts, but I can kick some butts. And one of the things I love to do is to join tournaments because like that way I get to test my skills against other people. And so I put myself in this tournament, and I looked at the bracket and this is so mean of them. Like they have weight brackets for different things. My weight category is called ultra heavyweight.

How discouraging is that name? I'm like can't we make a couple subsections? Like ultra it's it's two twenty pounds to forever. Like anybody in there. I'm like I have to like rebuke that in front of Satan like get behind me Satan if you can find your way. I'm like this is like the thing like ultra heavyweight.

And so I looked at my bracket for my belt category

and my age and that and so I ended up there's only three people in the category myself and two others. So I'm like, okay. Because at this timeline, I didn't have a lot of time to train like like I would have wanted to like I have for other tournaments where you really like you're in tournament training like you're in, right? Competition training. And this I hadn't, but I'm like, well I'm not that bad at it. I should go in and do it. But this one, all my whole family wanted to come. They're watching. Some congregants came. That's terrifying because like I built myself up to be all like strong and bad butted. So I'm just like, man, I'm gonna show you what. So

anyway, so we get there. First guy I'm on the mat with, we go back and forth, but he ends up winning on points. Whatever. Second guy shows up. This dude is like you know it's like Pastor Daniel on steroids. Just like right? I found out he was actually a convicted felon for kidnapping,

and like I was like, man someone test his pee. There's more than peptides in there. Like this guy's too yoked. But whatever. We get on the mat but this guy's just giant. But I thought like these child bearing hips are low center of gravity. I'm like, okay let's go. And so we started going. Drags He me down to the ground. He gets me something called a bow and arrow choke. And now a bow and arrow choke is where like he's grabbing a lapel and pulling across my neck at the same time he's pulling my knee up and he's pushing his hips into me. So kind of like a bow and arrow. But this beautiful thing about jiu jitsu. You could die unless you're like no thanks.

That that's all it takes. Thank you. And you're just done. You just tap. And so I'm in this moment where I'm like, oh, this is really tight. I should tap. And next thing you know, I'm in dream world.

I am legit in my mind, I am in Foot Locker flip slipping on flip flops. I'm just like, whoop whoop. And I wake up and I had been choked unconscious on the mask. My wife, she was like videotaping from her phone and you hear my son be like, is daddy okay? And she's like, I don't know, And turns it off.

I don't want to capture his death. I didn't die. I'm here. But it was so wild. Actually someone told me after, was that your first time? I said, yeah first time being choked unconscious in front of my family. He said, oh, it happened to me and I peed myself. You're lucky. I'm like,

that could happen. I'm glad I offloaded before I came to fight like, you know. It it was a weight thing. I was trying to, you know, cut a little weight, get out of ultra heavy if I could. Oh, but I didn't. And you know what I did?

I just got up two black eyes from that choke and I walked right over to the podium and got my medal. That's right. Third place posted about it. Posted about it on Instagram. I posted about it. I told people that's my thing. Third place medal.

It's wild because like that medal was secure before I did anything. Like for real. Like I just had to show up and lay there and I would have gotten that medal. Like your salvation

in Jesus is undeserved and secure because of what he's done, not because of what you could do. And so when you walk through life fumbling around, that's okay. Do it as obediently as possible under the grace of Jesus. Take it seriously. Let this be the authority of your life and let God work out all the details.

What a beautiful gift to know that your salvation is secure. You put the helmet on and walk forward knowing that Jesus is building his church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. And you can have all confidence not because of what you do, but because of what he's done. Now how does this make sense theologically?

What we're told in Corinthians is that he who knew no sin became sin so that we could become the righteousness of God. What does this mean practically? Before I became a pastor, was a probation officer, and what I did in Canada for one of the provinces was I like helped people rehabilitate into the community after they were done their period of incarceration in a correctional facility. So people who had been convicted of manslaughter, assault, armed robbery, robbery, like these kind of things, and I would help them make conventional supports and connections in the community. But I'd often have to go to the courts and show like a history of that person's life in the midst of their sentencing. And so I'd have a file on the person, all the things they've ever done, all the things that we had record of, bad, some good, all these things.

Picture yourself for a minute, like just with your own file before God. The God of the universe who is absolutely holy, any unholy thought, any unholy deed, anything you've ever done, any time you've rebelled from him, all the things that are human sinful, like, I imagine my file would be significant.

And as the gavel of the judge begins to come down, somebody standing next to with, hey. Hey. Give me your file. And you look over and this man sitting in front of him has absolutely nothing in his file, totally clean. You're like, What are you talking about? He's like, Hey, give me your file. Hurry up. Give me your file.

So you take your file and you give it to him. He said, no. I want everything. Listen, man. I I'm really filled with shame about this one. I wasn't I was gonna bring this one to the grave. He's like, it's okay. I brought it to mine.

You hand it to him. Well, if you're gonna take that one, like, you may as well have this one too. The gavel comes down from a just judge who knows all innocent, righteous. You're like, what?

Because Christ bore your sin to the grave on the cross and rose again showing it was paid for in full so that you don't have to carry it all the days of your life. Helmet of salvation on.

And the God of the universe who sits on his throne, right now the Bible says Jesus is seated next to him interceding on our behalf. That's not like intercessory prayer. That's God. Like Jesus talking to God being like, yo yo, that one I saved him. And God being like, I love that one. Oh, I saved that one.

I love that one. Oh, I saved that one. Okay. I love that one. God's love for you. Jesus' sacrifice, the spirit's empowering. The truth of the gospel is that he is with you. Lo and behold, I am with you till the end of the age. In everything you do, he is with you and for you.

Follow Jesus to have a life that is life to the full. Put on the helmet of salvation daily reminding you of who you are in him, and I guarantee that will absolutely transform your life. Let's pray together. Jesus, we are so grateful for how you love us. We

are so grateful for the opportunity we have just to even unpack this scripture before you, that you are so incredibly kind and merciful. And while the bar to get into your grace is perfection,

the only way we enter is through you Jesus, the perfection that was given for us and to us. And so for some of us maybe for the first time, we want to accept that for ourselves. We want to receive that forgiveness. And for the rest of us, Jesus, help us daily to put on the helmet of salvation

in every situation we go through so that our issue would never be our identity again, that we would be found only in you, Jesus. Thank you for how you love us, and thank you that there's no other name but the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth by which we are saved. In that beautiful name, pray it. Amen. Amen.